


this must be the place

by peachcandle



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Cuddling, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Keith (Voltron)-centric, Keith needs a hug, Sickfic, Team as Family, canonverse, i think, like lots of platonic cuddling, sick!keith
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-03
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-11-22 23:54:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11391033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peachcandle/pseuds/peachcandle
Summary: A sick Keith is a touch starved Keith. A sick Keith without Shiro is just lost.





	this must be the place

**Author's Note:**

> I've always been so drawn to the idea of Keith as touch starved, deep down, in moments of vulnerability.
> 
> Anyways, Shiro and Keith are roommates in this chapter.

I.

In two days, Shiro demonstrates the flight simulator with the Garrison as his audience. It’s not a test, but it’s a test. Important eyes will be watching him, picking apart his decisions, his coordination, details as small as where his eyes travel a split second after an obstacle arises. Shiro isn’t nervous, but it never hurts to be prepared. When the door creaks open, Shiro hardly looks up from the simulation manual he’s been mulling through all day.

“Hey, Keith.”

“Shiro.” There’s a heaviness to Keith’s voice that raises a red flag in Shiro’s gut. His chair grates a soft, unpleasant sound as he scoots back to get a better look at Keith. Keith’s eyebrows furrow guiltily as Shiro takes in him in. The flush in his cheeks and the sag in his expression sell him out long before his crossed arms or his trembling frame.

“You coming down with something?” Shiro asks, tentative and firm all at once.

“Think so.” Keith admits. He walks to his desk and pulls open a drawer, then rummages around until he finds a bottle of pills. They click together as he pops the bottle open, and whatever he takes, he swallows dry. A cough into his shoulder. A sniffle that suggests he’s unable to breathe very well.  
He sinks onto his bed and begins to unlace his boots, fervently pulling at the knots like he can’t wait to be rid of them. He tosses his boots to the side without a word and starts to work on undoing his uniform. Shiro watches as Keith fumbles with the buttons, frustration evident on his face as one in particular keeps slipping through his fingers.

“Do you need anything?” Shiro rests his elbow on his chair, posture hunched because he’s ready to be up in an instant. Without looking up, Keith shakes his head. “Are you sure?” A nod. “If you do, I’m right here. Okay?” Silence. Hesitantly, Shiro turns back around. The complicated instructions and diagrams of the manual are right where he left them, but his mind is far from what’s on the pages. Instead, he becomes hyperfocused on Keith’s shallow breathing.

Two lines in, a light sigh tugs Shiro’s attention back to Keith. He twists around and finds that Keith hasn’t moved. This time, though, his head is tilted back in exasperation, a fist loosely bunching up the fabric just underneath where his shirt is exposed, where his uniform is beginning to loosely peel away. The lower half remains secure and fastened, and Keith’s other hand is digging into the mattress, nails curling around the sheets.

Shiro sighs, too. Carefully, he dog ears his page.

“Keith.” He mutters before he walks over. Keith’s eyes slide to Shiro before he tilts his head down. For a few seconds, they’re at a standstill. A silence falls between them. It’s not tense, but it’s not comfortable either. It’s a question, and Keith’s softly pinched features are hardly an answer. Shiro decides he doesn’t need to wait for one.  
The mattress dips under his weight as he sits beside Keith.

“Let me.”

Gently, he pries Keith’s fingers away and scoots a little closer. Keith’s hand falls limply to the side, finding purchase in another section of the sheets, and Shiro doesn’t pay any attention to the deepening pink flush creeping up Keith’s pale face. To the shy grimace that confirms how Keith feels about this moment of weakness. He makes quick work of the rest of the buttons.

“Thanks, Shiro.” Keith mumbles. Shiro sets his hand on Keith’s shoulder, and gives him the most sincere smile he can muster, hoping that Keith will catch it if he decides to look up. When he does, the corners of his mouth twitch upwards, even though the sentiment doesn’t reach his eyes. It’s more than enough for Shiro.

Keith turns away as a few chesty coughs slip out of him, and Shiro starts to rub his back. It’s his instinct to murmur something soothing, but the moment weighs heavier, tells him to let Keith have the silence. Getting Keith to open up to him has been a slow process. There’s a need in Keith Kogane, a burning desire to keep his own vulnerability as private as possible. What Shiro is doing now is fragile work.

Shiro stays at the side of the bed while Keith shrugs off his uniform, strips off his pants, and then crawls underneath the covers. The sheets shift beside him as Keith curls up on his side, light tremors still running through his body, breathing too heavy and shallow for comfort. His hair spills onto the pillow in tangled waves. Once he seems settled enough, Shiro reaches out, letting the back of his hand rest gently against the smooth skin of Keith’s cheek. An intense, dry heat meets his fingertips, and Shiro lets out a low noise of surprise.

“That bad, huh?”

“You’ve definitely got a pretty high fever there.” Shiro concedes. “How do you feel?”

“Tired.”

Shiro raises an eyebrow. Keith walks into the room looking dead on his feet, struggles to undress himself, and then curls up miserably under Galaxy Garrison blankets that are too thin and all he has to say is “ _Tired._ ”

“I’m having a little trouble believing that that’s all it is.” Shiro smiles, then, tone light. Berating Keith will get him nowhere.

“Not good. I guess. S’not a big deal, Shiro.” Keith’s reply is terse and uncertain, like he doesn’t fully believe himself either.

Shiro hums softly. “You cold at all?” Keith gives the barest nod in response.

“Alright, well. Give me a second.”

Shiro slides off of Keith’s bed and reaches up towards his own, snagging a corner of his blanket and pulling it down. He spreads it out on top of what Keith already has. He doubts it will help much, but that it will help at all is why he’s doing it. Once it’s settled, he tucks it around Keith’s shoulders, the way his mother used to do for him. It’s not immaculate, but it’s his best effort.

“Why are you doing this?” Shiro pauses. His chest starts to ache. A feeling deep in his gut tells him that the window he has to answer this question is short. That how he replies will be important to Keith.

“Because you’re my friend.” Shiro’s tone is free of incredulity. Of condescension or confusion. It’s honest, because that’s exactly what the statement is.

“Oh.” The way Keith says it is so weak, so unexpecting. It makes Shiro’s chest twinge even more. A mix of emotions runs through him, but the strongest one he can pick out is an intense need to make Keith feel safe. To let him know that he has the choice not to be alone.

“Is that any better? The extra blanket, I mean.”

“Kinda.” Keith sniffles again, a faraway expression settling over his face. His shoulders are still shaking, but in a way that’s a little more rigid. This kid.

“They’re not the warmest, I know.” Shiro chuckles a little. “It’s the best we’ve got.” He steals one more glance down at Keith. He looks so small, huddled in like that. Weak and vulnerable, in a way that Shiro bets he hates.

Shiro lingers for a few seconds longer before getting up. Tenderly, he smooths out the crease he left in the sheets. He walks back to his desk, and then returns to Keith’s side with the simulation manual tucked under his arm, and a pen and a highlighter in his hand. Keith looks up at him, eyes fever bright, as he draws the blankets back.

“What are you doing?” Shiro nests himself at the very edge of Keith’s bed. It’s a twin size, standard Galaxy Garrison fashion, and his body hangs slightly over the end. It’s not ideal, but he doesn’t want to make Keith move if it’s going to make him feel sicker.

“I’m going to look over some stuff for a bit here, if that’s alright with you.” Shiro opens his manual to the page with the folded corner.

“You…” Keith lets out a sharp breath. A laugh, Shiro thinks. “You really don’t have to.”

“I’ll cut you a deal, okay?” Shiro pauses in his reading to look at Keith. “Can I stay until you warm up?”

He waits while Keith considers it.

“Okay. Yeah. You can.”

“Okay.” Shiro smiles, then slides close enough to Keith so that their bodies are touching. Keith closes his eyes and turns his head in towards Shiro’s chest, and again, Shiro gets the sense that the moment is fragile. He’s afraid if he moves or does too much, he’ll break this foundation that he’s trying so carefully to construct. That this tender, vulnerable side to Keith will disappear back to wherever it came from, and this day will become another meaningless one to forget in the face of routine. So, Shiro returns to his manual. By the time Keith’s shivering has ceased, he’s fast asleep, breath puffing out evenly through the fabric of Shiro’s shirt, warming his skin.

Shiro doesn’t look down again until he feels Keith shifting, and he’s almost taken aback as Keith nuzzles into him, fingers weakly grasping his shirt. It stays like this, for a little bit, and then Shiro decides to take a leap.

He shimmies up and in, doing his best not to disturb Keith or move the blankets. Keith grunts, soft and sleepy as he stirs.

“Easy, buddy. I’m still here. Just go back to sleep.” Shiro feels Keith nod against him, and then he loops his arm around Keith’s shoulder and pulls him in. A soft noise that sounds like a sigh makes Shiro hold his breath, but Keith doesn’t move, and soon his breathing is even again. Shiro releases that breath slowly through his mouth, and lets himself relax.

He studies to the steady soundtrack of Keith’s soft snores, and ends up falling asleep himself, the manual spread out face down across his chest and Keith’s uncomfortable fever heat radiating against him.

It’s dark outside when he blinks himself awake. He squints at the lamplight, then peels the manual off, closes it, and sets it quietly on the ground. His arm is asleep, pins and needles shooting through it as he flexes his fingers. With gritted teeth, he unravels himself delicately from Keith, then checks his fever again. It hasn’t gone down. Quietly, Shiro slips out from under the covers so he can turn the lights off.

At the soft click of the lamp, he hears Keith’s soft voice in the darkness.

“Shiro?”

“Hey. I’m coming back.”

“”Kay.” Shiro wonders if this simple action, this single word, means anything to Keith, or if he’s just too tired and feverish to realize that he’s asking Shiro to stay. He decides he’ll never ask.

As promised, Shiro returns. This time, Keith doesn’t turn towards him. He doesn’t ask Shiro to leave, either. Shiro waits for Keith’s breathing to even out again, then lets his eyes slip shut.

In the morning, the sheets and Shiro’s clothes are damp from a broken fever and Keith is wrapped back around him. Their legs are tangled and Keith’s arms are around Shiro’s neck.

When they wake up, they don’t talk about it.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, thanks for taking the time to read this!
> 
> This is also my first non Klance? Crazy. Actually it might be Klance by the end, so the tags are subject to change.


End file.
